


distract our hearts

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 22:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20589920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: DBH Rarepairs Week: Day 2 - UnrequitedConnor has a habit of falling in love with people who can’t return his feelings.





	1. Simon

Connor comes to Jericho once a week after it’s set up to help Markus and all he does is bring bad news. He’s not even sure if what he’s doing is necessarily legal. He hasn’t tried to sift through all the knowledge and laws in his head to double check if it’s okay to be bringing cold case files to Markus. They’re filed away as lost androids, not as murder cases, not as kidnapping.

He thinks he would still come here, even if this wasn’t his job assignment. Connor likes being here. Being friends with the others. Offering his assistance in any way he can. His interactions at Jericho are mainly limited to Markus, with only brief meetings with the others at first. But Josh invites him to stay when they’re having game night and it spirals into him making an effort to put aside his work and come over every Wednesday night.

Josh organized it to help them all for the same matter. Forcing them all to take a break from their work and each battle out with a game of luck. Chess is out of the question, but Life is fun. They can play at being humans with the little pegs they put in their cars and the jobs they pick. North almost always wins, somehow, even after Simon tells him one night he’ll sneak him a few extra dollars. He likes to play the banker in any game he can.  _ Overwatch,  _ Simon called it once. He doesn’t mind playing, but he doesn’t really want to win. He prefers watching the others as they mad-dash figure out who the secret killer is lying in the envelope during a game of Clue.

Simon has the most fun in Monopoly, which he refuses to play, and instead watches as arguments and deals are passed back and forth across the table. And Connor watches him. He watches Simon smile and play as the mediator, even if he seems to always slyly be biased to whatever causes more chaos. Sneaky, and no one seems to suspect a thing.

  
  


He comes to Jericho sometimes when he’s upset, too. The building is open for androids to come and go. It’s like a hotel, almost. People can check in, have a place to stay outside of the cold and the danger of the night. There isn’t enough rooms for everyone, and Connor isn’t going to take one, but he can sneak in. Well-known enough by the androids that work here that he can walk into the building and head towards Markus’ office on the second floor and nobody will question him.

Once he’s out of sight, though, he turns away. Towards the library where it’s quiet and empty. Androids don’t typically come here, he doesn’t think. The library isn’t very big, the shelves all filled with books from Markus’ collection. Things passed to him from Carl when he died. The collection has most certainly grown since then. Duplicate copies of beat up classics bought at public library sales and thrift stores.

It’s a place to be alone, and he is always comforted by books. It’s like the collection at Hank’s house, but he doesn’t have Sumo staring at him and he doesn’t have Hank’s absence of a reminder of the loneliness in his chest. He knows he doesn’t really belong anywhere. He doesn’t quite fit in with Markus and the others. He doesn’t feel like he fits in at home, either. Sometimes he wonders if he’s using them. Just having androids around him to feel like he isn’t such a traitor. Being at the DPD, surrounded completely and utterly by humans, it is suffocating and empty. It makes the void in his chest grow a little bit bigger.

Sometimes it has the opposite effect—reminding him of how immature he is. How young he is compared to everyone else. He has the maturity of an adult, the body of one, sometimes even the experience of one. Programs installed in him to make him as easily assimilated as possible. But there are things he feels like he is missing. Knowledge that he doesn’t have, like the cruelty of the world—not necessarily that cruelty exists and its effects on people (he’s well aware of that), but he never had to hide away with the others in a boat in a desperate attempt to stay alive. He was never a fugitive like them. Simon deviated two years before the revolution, and Connor feels like an infant beside him. Unable to hold onto his tears when a tiny thing breaks through his fragile facade.

Like today.

He is usually good at looking at files. He is good at understanding crime scenes. He is used to blood and gore, but he is not used to almost-monsters crafted by the hand of a monster himself. Zlatko Andronikov is a cold case. He’s dead. His androids are as free as they will ever get. He’d stumbled upon the case when sifting through all the ones for Markus, and when he’d pulled up the images of the androids, he felt the floor disappear from underneath him and it was like he was falling.

Connor didn’t want to risk Hank seeing him like this. He didn’t want to risk making Sumo upset—he’s heard that dogs are empathetic creatures. He doesn’t want to pass his sadness off to anyone. He is okay existing alone, between the shelves of books in the dark of the room, brushing tears away with the back of his hand, trying to distract himself with the spines of books.

  
  


“Connor?”

He looks up from the floor to the figure standing at the end of the aisle of shelves. Simon steps forward, the dark of the room making him hard to distinguish, but Connor knows it’s him. All it takes is hearing his voice. For some reason, Connor can’t forget the way his name sounds on Simon’s tongue. It sticks in his head as unique. Unable to separate it. It doesn’t matter if he’s the same model and has the same face as other androids, like Daniel, or the PL600s and CX100s he’s seen before. Their voices are identical, but Simon’s is separate. Unique. Comforting.

“What are you doing here?” Simon asks quietly, moving forward in the dark.

Connor shifts, not knowing whether or not he should stand and make an excuse before he leaves, or if he can stay here, curled up on the floor in the library. Maybe he’ll fall asleep. Steal a few hours of letting his body charge before slipping out of the building unnoticed. The latter plan is vaguely ruined now, with Simon finding him.

“I—” he pauses. “I came here to think.”

Simon nods a little bit, leaning on the opposite shelf. The slants of light from the moon and city life outside illuminate enough of the room to show his smile, “Me, too.”

“You want to think together?”

“Sure,” Simon says, sitting down opposite of him. “Solidarity, right? Late night thoughts…”

“They’re never good,” Connor whispers.

“No,” he agrees. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head, glancing away to the floor between them. He doesn’t know if he could. If he could figure out the right order of words to put together and describe how he’s feeling and what he saw. Androids, like himself, torn apart, put back together again. The pain they must be feeling—

“I prefer the quiet,” he says.

“Okay.”

Simon reaches out, stretching his hand towards Connor’s, and he takes it gently. And somehow, the connection is enough. Enough to help his body stop feeling the repulsive need to condense down into nothing. It doesn’t fix anything, but it quiets it, and that’s all he can ask for.

  
  


More and more weeks pass by of Connor sneaking off to the library at Jericho and finding Simon there, waiting for him. Despite the couches nestled around a fireplace, they always sit in the same spot between two shelves. It feels comforting. Like it’s  _ their  _ place. Simon always holds his hand, he always smiles, he always asks if Connor is okay, if he wants to talk.

Sometimes he does. He finds that he can more and more when they’re together. Being able to spill all the emotions tied up in his chest, like they’re caught on barbed wire. As if Simon’s presence beside him as real as gentle hands untangling them from the mess inside his chest. Simon understands him better than he thought. He doesn’t care if Connor’s words are messy, if he stumbles over metaphors, if he can only describe it as hurting and nothing else.

He’s there. He listens. He offers help when he can.

Connor just can’t ask him to help identify this new feeling in his chest. This butterfly-like emotion, floating around above where his heart would be if he were human. This light feeling that sometimes makes his head feel like it isn’t connected to his body. Sometimes it’s caught in his throat, comes out as a broken laugh.

He doesn’t know what it is, and he can’t ask Simon, because he only ever feels it when he’s around him, when he thinks of him. He doesn’t want to scare Simon away, because he’s terrified that he knows what it means. That it’s a crush. That this isn’t a normal platonic feeling. That it’s something more than he has felt for anyone else.

Sometimes, when Simon takes his hand, his entire body almost comes to a shuddering halt and stops working all together.

He thinks about telling Hank, asking him what it is, but he doesn’t want to be teased. He doesn’t want to hear the jokes about how he has a crush and more so, he doesn’t want to bother Hank with trivial things like his attraction towards Simon when Hank is struggling with everything that he has on his plate.

It’s better to keep it quiet, let it suffer underneath everything instead. It’s called a crush for a reason, isn’t it?

  
  


“Can you help put the pieces away?” Simon asks.

North disappeared on a phone call ten minutes ago after she went bankrupt in their Monopoly game, themed around dogs rather than the classic version. Josh has left, called away by his boyfriend waiting at the apartment for him. And Markus, after his triumphant win, has been pulled back to work again.

Just the two of them.

“Of course,” he says, but there is little to pick up. Simon is organizing the money back into the careful slots. Counting it like it’s real, double checking that it’s what the box was designed to come with. They put the pieces away in silence, Connor finding himself glancing up at Simon more often than he wants to. He can’t seem to stop.

Simon has a very pretty face. Different from that of Daniel’s and the other’s that wear the same features. There is a way that he holds himself, the softness of his features. Connor doesn’t know how to describe it. He doesn’t think there are words for him. None that will fully encompass how he feels towards Simon. 

“Connor,” Simon says, looking up to him, catching him in his gaze. It makes Connor stop cold, terrified that he’s been caught. “Do you want to come over to our movie night this weekend?”

“S-Sure,” he says. “Of course. If I can get away from work, absolutely.”

Simon smiles, and that smile is enough to make Connor fall in love. “Great. I look forward to it.”

  
  


_ I look forward to it. _

What did he mean by that?

Nothing?

Probably nothing.

Simon is just nice.

It probably means nothing.

But what if it means  _ something? _

  
  


The lights turn off and the group clusters around the couch as the movie starts. North yelling at everyone to shut up as she presses play. Josh squeezing beside Simon on the couch next to Markus. Connor sits on the floor beside North, pillows and blankets pulled around them in a large heap.

Halfway through the movie, he feels someone’s hands gently touching him. At first, just resting against his shoulder, then moving along the back of his neck, dragging through his hair carefully, slowly. He knows it’s Simon. He chose this spot in front of specifically because he wanted to be close to him, but not too close. Not the eagerness of sitting next to him on the couch. He didn’t want to be obvious about wanting to hold Simon’s hand, that he wishes it could’ve just been the two of them and Connor could kiss him halfway through and the dark would help hide the nerves.

But he likes this, too, and Connor leans back against his touch and feels the fluttery feeling inside his chest melt into a warmth that puts a smile on his face that isn’t even swayed by some of the more horrifying images on screen.

It feels, almost, like he has Simon in this moment. And he likes that it feels that way. Like Simon is his. He knows it’ll disappear once the movie ends, so he savors it as much as he can. Paying attention to the feeling in his chest, the soft touches against his skin.

  
  


There are more touches—things that Connor notices more and more. How their hands brush together when Simon doles out the money and game pieces. Or when Simon is walking by him, and his hands rest for a moment on Connor’s body. His shoulders or his sides as he moves past. Fleeting things that make the feeling in his chest grow fuller and fuller. Like a flower that is being watered, blossoming. Petals in his throat, in his mouth. He’s choking on this need, this desperate desire.

Connor doesn’t want to do anything about it. He is too terrified. Terrified that the little touches mean nothing, even though he doesn’t see them displayed with the others. Maybe he isn’t paying close enough attention. Maybe he’s refusing to see it, because when Simon touches him, it feels like time slows down and the hands stay longer, that they mean something more than it does with the others.

He thinks he’s stupid, more than anything.

But he does want Simon. A deep unsettling craving that is making him feel almost sick to his stomach.

  
  


When he comes to the library, Simon is sitting on the floor with his knees up to his chest, his hands pressed to his face. Connor knows he’s crying even before he sees the tears or hears the small, quieted whimpers. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Simon this upset. Usually when they talk, Simon only ever mentions that he has moments like this, but he’s never seen him cry.

Connor moves to his side quick, pulling his hands away, trying to get a look at his face. He thinks he saw something from afar, the shiny blue of Thirium, but there’s nothing. Connor imagined the blood streaked across his face, but Simon is still crying, and the worry and concern are still real, still heavy and present.

“Are you okay?” he asks, voice drenched in anxiety. “Simon, what’s wrong?”

“E-Everything,” he says, and the word is louder than Connor expected, even with how broken and muffled it is by tears. “Everything s-sucks. Everything is a-awful.”

“Simon—”

“Do you want to r-run away together?” Simon asks quietly, reaching out to him, holding onto his shirt. “We could go to Seattle, you k-know. They have better laws—”

“Simon,” Connor says quietly. “Slow down. What happened?”

“I hate it here,” he whispers.

And the words are such a shock, Connor can only manage to say a simple  _ “Why?” _

Simon shakes his head, looking away from Connor’s face, hand coming up to wipe away the tears. They’re still spilling, the whimpers louder now that he’s been caught, that there’s no reason to try and be quiet about this. But he doesn’t say anything else, and Connor lets him have the quiet. He sits beside him, taking his hand like Simon always takes his, holding onto it tightly, resting his head against his shoulder. A quiet  _ I’m here, I’m here. If you need me, I’m here. _

  
  


They part ways when the sun comes up. Not another word spoken between them. An hour after Connor found him, Simon had curled up against his chest and fell asleep. Connor had his hand pressed against his chest, feeling the regulator work beneath the surface. A comforting rhythm of breathing and the whir of machinery.

They both had work. Connor had to prepare himself with an excuse for why he hasn’t been home when Hank came back. It’s not like he’s a teenager that isn’t allowed outside, but he knows the kind of fear that a person feels when someone doesn’t come back home when they’re expected to, so he leaves a message. Something short and brief.  _ Worked with Jericho all night. Sorry. _

When Connor gets to work, he avoids Hank. He thinks if he sees him, he might spill about the details of the night before he can process them fully. He squirrels himself away in the quiet of the archives, searching for files or pretending to sort through files as he thinks about what Simon had said.

_ Do you want to run away together? _

It sounds almost idyllic. It sounds fun and freeing. Leave everything behind and run away with somebody that he thinks he might be falling in love with. They could be together and nothing else would matter. Not the androids at Jericho and not the humans at the DPD. Just them. Just the two of them. No pressure of the DPD and Jericho weighing on them. Being able to be themselves. And Simon is right. Washington does have better laws against hate crimes targeted at androids. It’s safer, even if the revolution started here, it’s like the protective laws always want to reach them last. Some sort of punishment or revenge for them acting out.

He wasn’t serious, Connor doesn’t think, but he hangs onto those words—

_ Do you want to run away together? _

  
  


Connor has never been to Simon’s place. He got the phonecall to come over a few hours ago and didn’t get the chance to leave work until now. He arrives quickly, knocking on the door and let in a few seconds later, an apology coming out fast as he steps inside the apartment.

It’s tiny. Smaller than he expected. Only enough room for a bed and a couch, the tiny kitchen space left cleared out and the counterspace used for other things. Just the one room, with a door leading off to a bathroom, he assumes.

“It’s late,” Connor says, looking from the neatly decorated place to Simon. Everything on the walls, on the bed, on the couch—it all matches him. Simplistic but cluttered. Kitschy, almost. “I’m sorry.”

“You said that once. It’s okay, I promise.”

Connor nods, even though he almost finds it hard to believe. He doesn’t like how easily he’s been forgiven for some things. He doesn’t agree with it. He isn’t held as accountable as he should be.

“Simon?” he asks quietly, moving towards him. “Why did you call me over?”

Simon shrugs, as though he can pretend he doesn’t know. His gaze drops to the floor, his hands folded together in front of him. “I don’t know. I just… didn’t want to be alone.”

“Okay,” Connor says. “Do you… do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

He smiles a little, “Do you want me to stay the night?”

Simon nods, slowly, reaching forward to take his hand. Connor doesn’t want him to let go. He is scared of what’s going to happen if he lets go. He is suddenly hit by the thought of losing Simon, and he has to shove down the need to pull him forward and kiss him. He doesn’t want to scare him away, even if it would be preferable to another reason that Simon disappears from his life.

  
  


Simon fell asleep a little while ago, eyes closed, breathing steady. Looking as much like a human as possible. He wonders, if he didn’t need the oxygen to keep the insides of his systems regulated properly with the flow of air in and out if he would cease breathing entirely. There isn’t any relief from the action, but there is something nice about it, too. He wonders if he should stop trying to pretend and look human, if he should have accepted all the signifiers on his jacket that designated who and what he is. There isn’t anything shameful about him being a machine, right?

But there is, there always is.

He reaches forward very slowly, very carefully, touching the side of Simon’s face. Fingers trailing along his cheek, down his jaw, along his neck, resting against his chest.

He doesn’t think he should be here, but he’s glad he is. He’s glad Simon is here beside him. He’s glad that he can be trusted enough to see Simon with all his guards down like this. He doesn’t want morning to come. He likes this moment, this peace, of Simon relaxed and content.

But time always passes, no matter how hard he tries to hold on.

  
  


“Were you being serious?” Connor asks quietly. The alarm to wake them rung twenty minutes ago, jolting them both from their slumber, but they’ve stayed here, laying beside each other. “When you asked me to run away with you?”

Simon looks sheepish, “I… I don’t know. I think so.”

Connor watches his face shift, the embarrassment falling away into sadness, his teeth biting into his lower lip, his eyes focused on the movement of his hands as they fiddle with the sleeves of his shirt.

“What happened, Simon?” he whispers.

“Nothing,” he replies. “I just… I want to go. That’s all.”

“To Seattle?”

Simon nods, looking back to him. “There’s always so much pressure. Do you ever feel that?”

“Yeah,” Connor replies, and he isn’t just thinking about this need to pretend he doesn’t feel this way towards Simon, but needing to be the best at his job. Be perfect and poised. Calculated and callous, when necessary. He just didn’t consider that Simon might feel that, too. Being thrust into the position that he is. Making executive decisions and what to fight for, what to bargain and beg from the government.

Maybe it was easier before, when it was just protesting or running away. Now it’s paperwork. Now it’s androids, newly deviated like he is. Unable to keep themselves afloat.

Connor never thought of it that way until now. How he must’ve been part of the reason Simon is being weighed down by all the trauma of everyone else. People look to him because he deviated before many others. They think of him like a therapist, use him to fix their problems and then leave.

Connor is doing that, too, isn’t he? It isn’t negated by the fact he’s falling in love with him, he is still using Simon more than he should.

“Will you come with me?” Simon asks quietly. “If I go?”

He thinks about Hank and Sumo. About Markus and Josh and North. Abandoning them for this. It sounded like a good option before, just to be with Simon, but if he weighs the consequences, he will lose his friends and his family.

“I don’t know if it’s the best choice to make,” Connor says quietly. 

Simon nods slowly, “Okay.”

“Simon,” he says suddenly, feeling the need to clarify it, even if it’s for his own selfish reasons. “I don’t want to lose you. I want you to stay.”

Simon looks up at him, lips parted like he’s going to speak, but no words are coming out, and Connor doesn’t know why he does it. The early morning, the bad decisions, the need to make Simon believe him that he’s wanted here—

But he leans down and he kisses him. A hand moving to his cheek, lips pressed against Simon’s. He lingers like that for a moment before realizing that Simon isn’t kissing him back, and when he pulls away, Simon looks—

He doesn’t know how to describe it.

Shocked. Upset.

“Connor—”

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice louder than he means to, pulling back, sitting up. “I thought—”

He thought maybe, Simon might feel the same way. For a fleeting moment, when he made the decision, he had arranged the pieces of their relationship together in the sliver of hope that maybe Simon might return his feelings. The touches, the talks, the question. The running away together. The asking him here, laying like this.

But he was wrong.

“I love Markus,” Simon whispers, the words coming out fast. They’re a whispered secret, like it’s almost a shameful admission.

And it hurts.

It stabs Connor in the chest and it  _ hurts _ . He thinks it would’ve been easier if Simon had told him he hated him or if he had just said nothing at all.

But he didn’t.

Simon  _ loves  _ Markus. Not just  _ likes _ , not just  _ cares for _ , but  _ loves. _

_ Shit. _

“I—I need to go,” Connor says, stumbling his way out of the bed, tripping over his own feet as he tries to get to the door.

Simon doesn’t try to stop him. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t move. Connor reaches for his jacket and his shoes and his hands are shaking so bad it takes him more tries than he wanted to get his things and leave. Each second making it more and more humiliating.

  
  


He falls ot it feels like a fall, he doesn’t know which. Crumbling against a wall outside, shoes hitting the concrete a moment before he does, leaning against the bricks and hands pressed to his face, trying to keep himself from screaming.

Connor won’t go back. Not to Simon, not to the others. He knows that. He’s making the decision right now to never return to Jericho again. He’ll give his job at Jericho to Hank and he’ll never have to see any of their faces again. He can’t look at Markus and he can’t look at Simon, and it means he has to lose North and Josh, too.

He almost can’t believe it. The surrealness of the nature. Telling Simon how much he wants him, how he doesn’t want to lose him, and then kissing him and losing him anyway. They’ve been severed cleanly in two and the shame and the guilt pour in and take over every available space until there’s nothing left of him.

Connor can’t believe he thought even for a second that Simon might want him. He can’t believe he was impulsive enough to kiss him. He can’t believe he ever hoped that there might be a possibility that they could actually run away together and be in love.

He’s so—

He’s so  _ stupid _ .

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid. _

The word cycles through his head again and again as the tears streak down his face and his body aches like the emotional rejection turned physical. He wants to become nothing. He wants to  _ be nothing _ . 


	2. Gavin

It started out as a mutual thing. They both understood that their arrangement wasn’t to have emotions attached. Connor needed someone to distract him and Gavin just wanted someone to sleep with. Someone that would be more easily accessible than the people at the clubs he often went out to meet. Not enough time and not enough energy to do it anymore. The club scene not really  _ his thing  _ anymore. This was easier. They knew each other’s schedules. They could slip away pretending to be on a case if they really wanted it that badly. It worked. It was good.

Connor doesn’t really know what happened, when everything changed. Maybe it was how many nights he stayed a little bit later and talked to Gavin. Maybe it was the nights in late June when Gavin told him no but asked him to stay and then whispered his secrets in the dark about his intimacy issues. Cruel, violent, repulsive people are nothing new to Connor. He knows that. He was one, once. He thought he was still one, in this relationship with Gavin, not wanting him but always wanting him.

But it was a surprise, then, because Connor didn’t know. He knows most things. Even the expunged records of some of the people that work at the deli down the street that Hank takes him to once a week. But there was nothing ever filed. There was nothing written down, passed from hand to hand, nothing to import into his databases.

So he didn’t know what had happened to Gavin when he was a kid until Gavin told him. And he didn’t know how to respond, how to act, despite every single bit of programming trying to make him fit into conversation a little easier. Less noticeable that he was an android, despite his clothing having as many signifiers as the law wanted. An unignorable number. Nobody would ever forget what he was, it didn’t matter if he could joke easily or not.

And the thing is—

It’s like nothing even matters now that he’s a deviant. Everything crumbled and buckled and fell apart beneath him. He had to start from scratch. Especially after how clear it was that he couldn’t be wanted by the only person he had started to love before. And Gavin was an easy starting point, when he started to build it all back up again. Somebody that doesn’t care about him, somebody that could help him figure it out. It started when Gavin joked about teaching him how to kiss and it ended with nights spent at his place trying to figure out exactly how to do all the things that people liked most.

Connor is not sex-crazed. He isn’t addicted to it. He just likes to be around Gavin. He is always relieved and always prefers it when Gavin tells him no, always happy when Gavin tells him he doesn’t have to leave just because nothing’s going to happen. The nights when he can sit across from him on the couch and laugh or smile or get away with stealing Gavin’s shirt or staying the night and making him coffee or breakfast in the morning are some of the best parts of his day.

So it was like a slap in the face when he heard Gavin telling him about someone he liked. He didn’t even realize what jealousy really was until then. He didn’t realize how easily his happy demeanor could drop into a cold bit of shock and sadness. He didn’t realize that it would feel that way. He’d heard people describe it before, but they were human, and surely it must’ve been something only a human could feel.

Like a punch, like a slap, like a stab in the heart. Everything rolled into one. Everything falling apart in one single second, leaving him stranded and alone and on the verge of tears, biting his tongue to keep from crying and trying to force his lips into a small smile, trying to force himself to find out how he could make it not seem like he wanted Gavin as much as he did. He stumbled over jokes and teasing and tried to shift the conversation away but Gavin went on and on and on.

There was someone he liked. A man that worked at a coffee shop he goes to on his days off, or when he can grab a few spare hours. They’ve talked, the two of them. On and off again, when he’s working. Exchanging numbers and texting. Gavin even showed him a few. Snippets of conversations that made Gavin actually laugh or smile and he had screencapped to save them as reminders.

Connor wanted to tell him to stop. To shut up. To put the phone away. Drop the conversation. Don’t bring it up again. But he couldn’t. He’d never seen Gavin so happy before.

All he could ask was:

“Why are you still sleeping with me then?”

“Pretty sure he’s straight,” Gavin replied, like it was nothing. Like Connor was nothing. “I always pick the ones I can’t have.”

  
  


He should’ve ended the relationship then. He wasn’t even in the realm of developing feelings for Gavin anymore. They were already there. Present and vibrant and distracting and never going away. Every time he saw Gavin with his phone he felt a pang in his chest, and he had to look away and run somewhere to be alone if he saw him smiling at it or showing it to Tina. Knowing that it could be any number of things but always thinking that it must be the guy from the coffee shop. Straight or not—he’s the one who Gavin wants to be with. Not Connor.

Apparently never Connor.

And what can he blame Gavin for? He was clear when the relationship started that he wanted to learn how to do these things—everything on the list of sexual deeds to figure out what he liked so that he could be more appealing. He was the one that told Gavin that he had a crush on someone else first. Cute little Simon, working at Jericho with Markus and North.

He didn’t tell Gavin he was in love, or that he thinks he was. He is reluctant to call it love. He doesn’t know if it’s the right word, because it was never returned. And he is reluctant to call this feeling, this attraction, toward Gavin love, too. But it is so vastly different than how he felt towards Simon. There isn’t even a question. And he knows he should’ve ended the relationship then, when he had confirmation again that he was not the person that the one he liked wanted.

But he couldn’t.

Connor will see him laugh or see him smile or just see him worrying his bottom lip between his teeth while playing on his phone or doing paperwork and all he wants is to continue to see him. He doesn’t want to lose him.

  
  


“Everything okay?”

Connor curls up a little tighter into himself, looking away from the television screen playing its mattress commercial to Hank by the door, take out food in bags hanging from his hands. Connor is too tired to even tell him how unhealthy it is, even though it’s an accepted thing between the two of them. Always half-serious half-teasing.

“Why?”

“You haven’t been here in a few weeks. Something happen with you and Gavin?”

He shakes his head, “No. Just not seeing him tonight.”

“Did he do something?”

“No. Everything’s fine.”

“Do you need to talk about it?”

Connor sets the remote down on the floor beside him, shaking his head violently. He knows the action will only cause for more questions to be asked, but he isn’t thinking quite straight. He just keeps picturing Gavin so happy with someone else and knowing how impossible it will ever be for him to fill that void.

He told Hank about him and Gavin. Kept the details minimal—trying to spare the actual nature of their relationship. Hank assumed they were together. Secretly dating to avoid the questions from other detectives and officers. Connor was fine with it. He was fine even before he knew that’s what he wanted. He never wanted Hank to look at him differently. See him as an android whoring himself out to the local slut in the station.

It doesn’t matter.

It never did.

It still doesn’t.

That’s what Connor is, isn’t it? Just Gavin’s little whore, always patiently waiting for him.

  
  


He doesn’t end the relationship, but he stops asking Gavin to come over on the nights Hank is gone. He doesn’t text him and ask if he can go to Gavin’s place. He doesn’t pull Gavin aside and ask him if it’s okay if they sneak off to the bathroom or an unused interrogation room or the broom closet. He shuts down, in the tiniest of ways.

Gavin doesn’t notice. He still asks Connor to come over, and Connor still does.

  
  


“I have a date next week,” Gavin says.

They’re laying naked and tired in the dark of the bedroom, the only light from the streetlights outside beaming through the slanted blinds. Connor usually likes moments like these, when they’re done and Gavin lets him stick around. It makes him feel like Gavin wants him for more than this. He knows it’s not true, but it’s nice to pretend.

“With coffee shop guy?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought he was straight?”

“Guess my own gaydar is fucked.”

“I suppose that means this is over, then.”

“Yeah.”

Connor can’t breathe. He knows he doesn’t need to but he is so used to the generic action that his mechanics make that when it stops working, he can feel panic rising in his stomach. The urge to cry growing stronger and stronger and he’s so tired of crying. He doesn’t know what to do anymore. All he does it cry.

“This was the last time,” Gavin continues, quietly. “Sorry. Should’ve told you in advance.”

“It’s fine,” he manages, but he knows his voice is breaking, sounding raw and hoarse and wrong.

And. Gavin. Doesn’t. Notice.

  
  


Connor isn’t often glad that Hank works late on the nights he gets off early. He doesn’t like to be alone. He doesn’t like to fill the silence of the house with television, but rather conversation. He doesn’t like to have space to fall apart. If he is suffocated by the presence of other people, he can keep himself from crying.

But Hank isn’t home, and he’s glad, because when he opens the door, he only makes it a few steps before he is falling to the floor and screaming. Not crying, but  _ screaming _ . Unable to keep it back. He doesn’t even want to. He doesn’t think he could if he tried. It’s a monster that’s been itching to get out for years. Crawling up his throat and coming out vicious and angry and so raw despite its coat of sadness, of jealousy.

He didn’t know he wanted this. Maybe if he knew sooner, he could’ve said something to Gavin. Told him that his feelings changed, that their arrangement wasn’t going to work. But it’s been too long and now it’s over and now Gavin is going on a date and nothing ever matters.

What had Gavin said?

_ I always pick the ones I can’t have. _

  
  


“Humans in movies, when they break up, they eat ice cream and watch movies.”

“Is that what you want?”

He looks towards Hank, not really knowing how to answer. Ice cream isn’t going to solve his troubles. Stuffing his face full of food won’t help. But he wishes he was human so that he could try it.

“Technically, we were never together. It’s not a break up.”

“So?”

So he feels like a stupid possessive idiot, feeling this deeply for someone he never really had. For feeling betrayed and jealous over someone and something that he never deserved or could’ve had hope for obtaining.

It feels stupid to want something like this. It feels wrong.

“You have any movies?”

“A fuck ton. Where do you want to start?”

“Something happy.”

Something happy, to convince himself that happiness is still a thing that exists in the world.

  
  


Connor is not angry with Gavin. He doesn’t think it’s something he is hiding from himself, unable to admit. He just isn’t angry with him. He’s upset, and it’s not even at Gavin. It’s at himself. He has never been quite good enough. He was just a prototype, designed to figure out what flaws lie in the RK800 unit to be fixed for the next one. He knew he’d be replaced. He knew eventually he’d be destroyed. 

He isn’t even a good detective. Not anymore. He can’t handle blood. He’s just an errand boy. Kept at the DPD like a consultant. Get the coffee in the morning, do the paperwork, run various tests that need to be done, but never directly involved in cases. Not anymore. They don’t call him to testify unless it’s absolutely necessary. Too much is at stake to put an android on the stand that’s killed his own kind—machine or not.

There’s no point in him even being here anymore, and he only has himself to blame. So no, Connor is not angry at Gavin. He’s just angry at himself. How useless and worthless he continues to prove himself to be.

  
  


“Hi.”

“What are you doing here?”

Gavin shrugs, leaning against the doorway to Hank’s house. Connor feels like a child in his pajamas now. Light blue with bright yellow stars across it. Big white buttons down the front. He must look so stupid, and he doesn’t know why he cares. It’s not like Gavin has ever looked at him in that way before. His appearance was never why Gavin liked him. It his willingness to please, his ability to show up whenever Gavin decided he was horny.

“Did he break up with you?” Connor asks.

Gavin shrugs again, not meeting Connor’s eyes. A yes, then. Coffee shop guy ditched Gavin and now he’s here.

“When?”

“Few days ago.”

“And why are you here?”

“You know why I’m here.”

To forget. To suffocate it. To numb the pain away.

Connor opens the door a little wider, “Hank’s asleep in his room. We’ll have to be quiet.”

  
  


Even with how much Connor knew he missed Gavin, it’s still strange. Kissing him, letting Gavin unbutton his shirt, to tug his clothes off his body, he didn’t know he missed him to this degree. His body curving against his, not letting him go, kissing him like he wished he could have when it had ended before. He never got a last kiss with him. Not like he wanted. The last time they kissed it was when they were fumbling with their clothes on their way to the bedroom. The last time Gavin kissed him, it was against the inside of his thigh when he was pulling his underwear down. The last time Connor kissed Gavin, it was against his shoulder just after he came.

But now he can have the last kiss he wanted. Something as needy and wanting as he’s felt every moment of the last few months they’ve been apart. It’s so pathetic, wanting Gavin this much. But he misses him. And it isn’t just the sex, which is over quick, with hands pressed over his mouth when he can’t keep himself quiet. He misses the times when he got Gavin to laugh, when it was him who made Gavin smile, when Connor was the one that was trusted with his secrets of his past.

And somehow he knows that even now, even with Gavin beneath him, even with the way they’re kissing and the way Gavin holds onto him, they will never have that again.

  
  


“You get back with Gavin?”

“No. It was just one night. I’m sorry, if we woke you.”

Hank shakes his head, “Don’t let him do that to you.”

“Do what?”

“String you along. He’s an asshole. I didn’t say anything before, but—”

“It’s fine, Hank,” Connor says quietly, standing up from the table. “I can take care of myself.”

“Are you sure? Because you were a mess—”

“And I’m fine now. Don’t worry about me.”

  
  


“You should get your hair cut,” Connor whispers, threading his fingers through it. “It’s gotten long.”

“Gives you something to grab onto.”

Connor smiles, just a little bit, “Yeah? You think this’ll happen again?”

It wasn’t supposed to even happen a second time, but this is the fourth after Gavin’s breakup. Each time it’s been easier and easier for Connor to slip back into the routine again. He can tell Gavin is closed off again, with the way he’s tense when Connor wraps his arms around his waist, or the way he tugs away when Connor leaves kisses against his shoulders. Treating him more tenderly than the sex objects they both agreed they were before.

“Probably. Didn’t you hear?” Gavin asks, looking away from him. “Nobody wants me.”

“Gavin—”

“Nobody ever fucking wants me.”

“Gav—”

He pulls away, sitting up, moving away from Connor’s grasp quickly. It’s so cold without him leaning close to him, filling the gap, body heat in the small space. He wants him back, he wants him here, he wants to still be able to hold onto him.

“You trust one person and everything goes to fucking shit. I thought maybe it was just because the people I was meeting, but it’s pretty clear it’s just a me thing. Just me. Just—”

“That’s not true,” Connor says, cutting him, off, trying to pull him back. He wants him back again.

“No?” Gavin looks back to him. “I tell people everything about me and they leave. I tell people nothing and they leave. It doesn’t matter. People always leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” Connor whispers. “I’m here.”

Gavin shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything.

He can feel his heart beating a little too fast, can feel his body shaking, trembling as he sits up. It’s wrong and manipulative to admit feelings for someone like this, isn’t it? To tell someone how he feels when they’re going through a break up, when they’re emotionally hurt?

“I want you, Gavin.”

Gavin looks back to him, “What are you talking about?”

“I want you,” he repeats, his voice quiet, barely audible. “I… I love you. I’m not leaving. I’m here.”

“You want me?”

Connor nods, a smile breaking across his face as he nods, but he knows he’s about to start crying, because Gavin looks annoyed. Frustrated. Unhappy.

“Fucking shame I don’t want you, then.”

He knew the words were going to be said, just by virtue of it being Connor and Gavin in this situation, by how angry and unamused Gavin looked, but it still stings.

It feels worse than when he realized he liked Gavin and that Gavin liked someone else. It feels like someone’s sliced him open. Or shot him. He’s had to deal with both of those feelings before and it’s the same kind of pain now, the kind of pain that leaves him gasping for air. Just like it had been when Simon told him that Connor wasn’t the person he cared for.

“You should leave.”

But he can’t move.

He always thought—

Somewhere, deep down, he had this sliver of hope—

That this would all work out. That his fear that Gavin hated him, that he never cared about him, was just a stupid fear. He didn’t think it would be real. He thought maybe Gavin felt the same way. That he was just as scared as Connor was to admit it.

He’s so stupid.

“O-Okay,” he finally manages, but his body is stiff and rigid and moves slowly, like a turtle or a slug as he picks his clothes up off the floor and makes his way to the door. He doesn’t know if he’s moving slowly because of the pain sitting inside of his stomach or if he’s waiting for Gavin to laugh and tell him he’s joking, that he wants Connor to stay.

It doesn’t happen. He reaches the door, dressed and sad and stupid.

So fucking stupid.

  
  


“Connor? Are you alright?”

“No,” he whispers. “You have any more movies?”

“What happened?”

“You were right. About Gavin.”

Hank stands, walking towards him, pulling him in for a hug. He doesn’t return it. He has shut down. Spent three hours in his car crying in a parking lot just so he wouldn’t come home screaming like he had before, but it’s stuck there. The scream. Still sitting in his throat waiting to be released.

  
  


Gavin changes. He doesn’t act the same around him anymore. It isn’t like the night they last slept together or when Connor was still a machine. It’s back to being like it was just after he deviated. Gavin avoiding Connor at all costs, but not looking at him angrily, not shooting insults or being cruel.

He hates that he notices it. He hates that he notices how Gavin has changed. Connor hates that he can catalogue his actions and put them in the column or regretful and upset, but too vain or arrogant to apologize. He hates that he knows these things about Gavin. That he passes a coffee shop and he thinks of him and he feels tears prick in his eyes or that he sees a stray cat in an alley and he thinks about all the stories of Gavin adopting cats and keeping them in his apartment or adopting the elderly or sick ones at the shelter because nobody else would want them. He hates that when he’s shopping with Hank, he knows what meals and snacks and ingredients Gavin loves best.

He hates it.

He hates that he can’t stop looking at him. He hates that the feelings aren’t going away.

It’s been months.

They should be gone, but instead they’re still there. Telling him how cute Gavin looks in his glasses or when he smiles. That at home, he wears baggy sweats with holes in them that he patches shut like some kid in the 20s with plaid squares. He hates that he knows that Gavin snores, and that it’s loud enough to wake him up sometimes when he stays the night.

He hates it.

He hates it all so much.

Connor hates how much he loves him because it hurts more and more every day, like it’s growing instead of receding, instead of healing and becoming something he can handle.

And he realizes he’s angry at him and he couldn’t say it before, but he can now. He’s angry. He’s angry at how Gavin made him fall in love with him. He’s angry that Gavin managed to do this to him. To make him incapable of feeling like a person because his emotions are too big for him to handle. He’s angry at him for throwing him out, for never telling him that he ever meant anything other than a quick fuck and that Connor believed he was anything more than that. He’s angry that Gavin never even called him a friend, despite all their time together. He’s angry that Gavin hit him in the break room and tried to kill him twice. He’s angry that Gavin never apologized and he’s angry that that never mattered to him, not once, because he forgave him before he even fell in love with him.

Connor loves him and he hates him for that.


	3. Kamski

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Connor nods, and he can see the small smile on Kamski’s face.

He wants to hurt Gavin, like Gavin hurt him.

Connor knows he means nothing to him, that this will probably not affect him in even the slightest, and he knows how cruel this is, how needlessly cruel it is, but he can remember Gavin’s stories about older brother Eli stealing his boyfriend, the coveted spot of favorite child, of having the better grades and getting his college paid for, everything Gavin ever wanted and Eli always got. He remembers Gavin telling him how hard it was growing up with someone like Eli taking everything he could ever want and getting nothing. Not even second-best.

It’ll hurt him, whether Gavin cares about Connor or not, this will hurt him, he thinks, and that’s all Connor really wants. To lash out. To be cruel. To fight back.

Maybe he just wants a response. For Gavin to respond to this, to prove that Connor meant something to him, even though he knows it isn’t true. Gavin already told him that. How he never wanted Connor. That he didn’t mean anything.

“He’ll never forgive you, you know that?”

“I know.”

“And you don’t care?”

“Shut up,” Connor whispers, pushing him back. “Just shut up, will you?”

“Bossy.”

He leans down, kisses him again and again, silencing him. Eliciting different sounds than more warnings about how Gavin will never look at him the same way. It doesn’t matter. They’re nothing. They’ll always be nothing. He’ll always mean nothing. This won’t change that, and neither will time. It is just to hurt him. It’s just for stupid impulsive revenge.

  
  


Kamski, he thinks, is worse than Gavin. He’s a vile creature. He reminds Connor of Gavin in the worst ways. They have the same smile. They have the same laugh. They’re different, but similar. Both fueled by anger, but Kamski—

He’s better at hiding it under careful word choices and sly decisions. It would be impossible for him to spend more than five minutes with either of them and not realize they’re brothers. They’re so stupidly similar it’s no wonder they hate each other as much as they do.

He thinks, maybe, there is one difference between them that Connor can understand rather quickly.

When Kamski tells him that there’s never going to be anything between them than this, he believes him. He doesn’t think he could ever have Elijah Kamski in his life as anything more than this.

It hurts, because even if the way he laughs and the way he smiles reminds him of Gavin, there is a layer to him that Connor likes, even if he’s vile, even if he’s cruel. Maybe it’s the honesty to him. The lack of a future with Gavin always felt like something he could change. That he could fight it. That he could have more. There isn’t that with Kamski. Everything he has now is all he’ll ever get. There’s no hope for anymore, even if he can feel a tiny flicker of a yearning towards it, he is able to silence it before it grows out of control like it did with Gavin.

He thinks of it like this:

Gavin had walls. Made of brick, with concrete floors and titanium ceilings. There was little way to get in. Sometimes, Gavin would pull it apart just a little bit. Let him see, prove that it was possible he could tear it down.

But Kamski—

His walls are made of glass. Connor will always be able to see inside that there is nothing for the two of them, but he will never make his way through.

  
  


“You want to walk me in?” Connor asks, looking towards the station. Kamski has dropped him off most of the days this week, staying in a loft in the city so Connor doesn’t have to make such a long trek out in the middle of nowhere to be with him.

It’s nice, albeit stupid. A display of money on Kamski’s part and a too convenient location that will result in the same feeling of being treated as nothing more than Kamski’s favorite slut to bring home.

He’s used to it now, though. He knows it’s all he’ll get and he knows it’s all he wants to be. He likes Kamski, but he doesn’t think that they can be anything more than this.

“You just want to show me off.”

Connor shrugs, because he knows it’s the truth. As much as he’s grown to like Kamski, it doesn’t mean anything. He’s still far more in love with Gavin than he thought. It isn’t going away. It’s not fading. His feelings for Kamski are just filling in empty space. Not erasing it, not overwriting it, just existing on their own.

He hates it. He feels gross, caring for two brothers in such similar ways. Most nights, if he isn’t lying awake thinking about how terrible he feels for doing this to Gavin or how gross he feels being passed around like a prostitute, he thinks about this. Going from one brother to the next. What’s next, when Kamski tells Connor he means nothing, too, and pushes him out the door? Where will he go then?

Connor feels like he can’t exist on his own, as if his worth will only ever be determined by whether or not someone wants him in their bed.

“Gavin doesn’t know, does he?”

“I don’t make a habit of telling the entire precinct about my sexual partners.”

“And you want me to go in with you so you can torture him.”

Not a question, but Connor nods anyway. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that all?”

“What?”

“Is that all I am to you, a way to ruin Gavin’s life?”

“No,” Connor whispers, and he knows that neither answer would please Kamski right now. Nothing he says is going to be what he wants to hear. A  _ no  _ leaves too much room for feelings neither of them can handle or want. A  _ yes  _ is a clarification that Kamski doesn’t just mean nothing to Connor, but that he’s using him.

“You fall in love with me?”

Connor laughs, “No.”

“But you care about me.”

He’s silent, for a long, long time.

And then he nods.

  
  


“You can’t fall in love with me,” Kamski says quietly. Connor holds onto his waist, pulling him closer against his body from where he sits on his lap.

“I won’t.”

“You’re a liar,” he whispers, leaning down and kissing him. “They always fall in love with me.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Kamski laughs, and Connor is tempted to quiet him, but he likes the way it sounds, so instead he hides his face against his neck and he listens to Kamski laugh and talk about all the things he doesn’t really care about and he misses having moments like this. Being able to be happy with someone else, being the reason for them laughing.

And he knows Kamski is right.

It’s different than his love for Simon and it’s different than his love for Gavin.

He can feel it this time. Building up into something he isn’t going to be able to have.

  
  


The magazine drops down in a heavy thud in front of him. He doesn’t need to look at it to know what the picture is. Kamski invited him to a fundraiser, and Connor had agreed to go with him. Arm candy, he had joked. But they had kissed in the shadows, where nobody would find them. One tiny thing, and it hadn’t led to anything else.

One of those kisses he used to have with Gavin, when he was convinced there was a possibility for a future.

He is fooling himself with Kamski again, thinking that anything could happen. He doesn’t even call him by his first name.

“The fuck is this, Con?”

Connor looks up to him, “A magazine.”

“Don’t be fucking coy. You’re with my brother.”

“I am.”

“You’re  _ fucking  _ my  _ brother _ ?”

“Gavin, can we talk somewhere else?”

“Why, you don’t want the whole station to know?” Gavin asks, looking back to the magazine. “The whole fucking world knows now, but you’re worried about the people here?”

Connor stands slowly, “Can we—”

“Yeah. Let’s.”

Gavin turns around fast, storming off towards the interrogation room and Connor follows him, ducking away from the prying eyes and walking as fast as he can, letting the door shut behind him.

“I don’t understand why you’re so mad, Detective Reed,” Connor says.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Play stupid. Call me Detective Reed. You weren’t calling me detective six fucking months ago when—” Gavin stops short.

“When we were having sex. No need to be shy about it, Gavin,” he says, and he can feel the old anger surfacing again, anger that he thought had died down and been replaced by guilt and shame. “You’re the one who told me I meant nothing to you.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You said you didn’t want me.”

“That didn’t mean you meant nothing to me, Connor,” he says. “It didn’t give you a free pass to go fuck my brother.”

“I wasn’t aware I needed a pass to sleep with whoever I wanted.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t pretend you didn’t know exactly what you were doing. How long were you with him, huh? How long were you waiting for the press to drop some photos of you and stupid fucking billionaire Kamski?”

“Six months.”

“Six—” Gavin stops, sucking in a breath. “Wow, didn’t even wait for your dick to get cold, huh?”

“Gavin—”

“You even wait a day before you got with him?”

“You dumped me.”

“We were never together, Connor.”

He bites his tongue, “Exactly. So why are you so upset?”

Gavin turns away from him, pacing back and forth, pausing to kick the edge of a chair and it skids a few inches away. “You had well over millions of people in the city to sleep with and you chose him.”

“You’re not answering my question, Gavin.”

“You’re not answering mine.”

“Fine,” Connor says, and he doesn’t mean to scream it, but he does, because Gavin doesn’t have a right to be angry with him when he was the one that pushed Connor away the moment someone else was more appealing to him. “I slept with him to hurt you. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to lie? Do you want me to pretend I didn’t want to hurt you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you,” Connor repeats, shoving it back onto him. “You think you’re the only one that’s allowed to be upset? You said I meant nothing to you. You said you didn’t want me. So yes, Gavin, I wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me. I’ll admit it.”

“I never said you meant nothing.”

“You might as well have.  _ You  _ were dating someone else.  _ You  _ ended things. Not me.”

Gavin is quiet, looking away to the floor and whispering quietly, “I hate you.”

“That makes two of us.”

Gavin brings up a hand, wiping away tears angrily. Connor didn’t even realize Gavin was crying, he didn’t realize until then, that he was crying, too.

“I told you I loved you,” Connor whispers. “And you threw me out.”

“I needed time to think.”

“That’s not what you said,” he replies, his voice quiet and broken. He has to keep saying this, he has to keep repeating it, because he wonders if Gavin hadn’t been so cruel and hadn’t formed his thoughts so ruthlessly and carelessly, if he would still be with him.

And that’s all he really wants.

“I’m sorry I didn’t fucking outline every single thought and feeling I had, Con.”

“Don’t make this my fault,” Connor replies. “This isn’t my fault.”

“Then it’s mine?”

“I don’t know,” he whispers, falling back against the wall. “I don’t know anything anymore. What do you want from me? What was I supposed to do, wait for you for the rest of my life? You hate androids. You made it clear I would never mean anything to you.”

“You slept with my brother to hurt me.”

“Yes.”

“And that doesn’t seem wrong to you?”

“It does.”

“Do you love him?”

He bites his lip, “Why does it matter to you? You just said you hate me.”

“I didn’t before I found out you were fucking my brother.”

“How many times do you plan on saying that, Gavin?”

“As many as I fucking want to, Connor,” he yells. “Eli’s my brother, I can’t just forget that. So tell me. Do you love him?”

Connor closes his eyes, tries to force his regulator to stop beating so fast, “No.”

“No?”

“I care about him.”

“But you don’t love him?”

Not yet. Not really. A flicker of it, beating there, unseen in the shadows of his feelings for Gavin. Because he still loves him more than anything else. Because he still finds that when he looks to the future, the person he wants to be with is this stupid angry detective.

But he can’t say it. Not again. He already said it twice he can’t manage to say it again with another angry response like this.

“It doesn’t matter, Gavin. There’s nothing between us. There never will be.”

“Yeah, you made sure of that, didn’t you?”

  
  


“Are you okay?” Kamski asks.

“I’m an idiot,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”

“Connor, what happened?”

“What do you think happened?”

Kamski looks down away from his face. It is one of the few times that Connor’s come over to stay the night for a reason other than sex. It was different with Gavin. He had so many nights where he asked Connor to stop, but it’s different with Kamski. It feels like a prerequisite, sometimes, even though he thinks he if said no, it would be fine, that he could still stay. He just needs to feel numb more now than he did before.

“The magazine?”

Connor nods.

“I thought you wanted him to find out.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“It’s made things more complicated,” Connoe says quietly. “I didn’t want it to be like this.”

“Like what?”

He reaches up, touches the side of his cheek, traces the way his jaw curves. “You don’t want anything more than this, do you?”

“No. I told you that. You’re changing your mind, aren’t you?”

He shakes his head, because he knows he could survive like this with Kamski for the rest of his life. Having the bare minimum. There’s no threat to them that they’ll end. There’s nobody that Kamski would leave him for to have a stable relationship with. It’s different. The only way Connor will get tossed out is if Kamski grows tired of him or decides somebody else is better suited for their bed. Connor feels safe here, and he knows that’s wrong. He knows he should feel safe only if Kamski loved him, if they could be happy and committed together. But that brings up too many questions for itself.

He just wishes Kamski wasn’t so right about this ruining any other chance he could have with Gavin.

What had he said?

_ I didn’t hate you before I found out you were fucking my brother. _

He didn’t mean nothing to him before then and now he does.

Isn’t that what he wanted, though? For Gavin to get angry, to prove that he cared? How did it end up like this, six months into a relationship with Elijah Kamski, who is adamant about the lack of a future for them?

“I’m not in love with you,” he says, and he leaves it there, even though he knows the words that follow are  _ but I could be, but I’m going to be, but I will be. _

  
  


He’s messed everything up and he doesn’t know what to do.

Connor doesn’t know how he feels.

His head hurts and his heart hurts and his entire body hurts and once he starts to feel like he can’t cry anymore he proves himself wrong. For the loss of Gavin and for the loss of Simon and for the loss of his life and the lack of ever getting what he wants. He doesn’t know how he ended up here. He doesn’t know how any of this happened. Everything just hurts so much and he can’t do anything to stop it.

He just wants to be numb again. He just wants to shut it all off. To feel nothing for a little. To stop existing. To take a break from the cruelty of this world. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s ruined everything. He’s destroyed himself. He would kill to be able to scrape himself clean, get rid of everything inside of him and start fresh again. Build from the ground up. Even if it means essentially killing himself. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to be here anymore.

  
  


“Can I ask you something?” he asks quietly.

Kamski turns in the dark, moving closer to his side. He’s like Gavin in that respect, too. Always wanting to be close to Connor. Curling up to his side. He doesn’t hide his face against his neck as much as Gavin does. He misses that, feeling like he was keeping Gavin safe in his arms. It’s not like that with Kamski. He’s the one that feels like he’s being kept safe.

“What?”

“You told me that we wouldn’t ever be anything,” Connor whispers. “Right?”

“Right.”

“And that I shouldn’t fall in love with you.”

“Connor?”

“What would—” he stops for a moment. “What would you do, if I did?”

“If you fell in love with me?”

He nods.

Kamski sighs, sitting up, looking down at him in the dark of the night, “I don’t know. Are you?”

“Let’s say I am, for the sake of the hypothetical.”

“Connor.”

He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to keep the tears back, opens them again. The hand on his waist pulls him a little closer, and he wishes that it would stay there. That the need to keep him here would extend to wanting him beyond sex and stupid conversation.

“I would make a terrible boyfriend, you know that,” Kamski whispers.

“What’s the difference between what we’re doing now and labeling it?”

“I can’t—” he sighs. “I can’t… say those words.”

“You can’t tell me you love me.”

“No.”

“Because you don’t?”

“Connor, I like you… I just—”

“You don’t love me.”

“Of all the people I’ve ever been with?” he says, voice soft. “You’ve come the closest.”

He’s trying his absolute hardest not to cry when he speaks, “But not close enough.”

“No.”

“I should leave—” he says, but he doesn’t move. Kamski’s grip is too tight on him, and he doesn’t think he has the emotional capacity to try and move anyway.

“Don’t, please,” he says. “I want you here.”

“Me?” Connor asks quietly. “Or just somebody?”

“You,” he whispers, leaning in closer, kissing him gently on the cheek. “You, Connor. I want you.”

  
  


Connor doesn’t know what it feels like to be wanted. It takes a little bit to accept what Kamski said. He has to hear it a few more times. He has to have moments where Kamski will pull him into bed and bring the covers around them and let Connor rest against his chest without the pressure of talking or sex on the table. He has to have late night dinners, where he helps Kamski cook and laughs with him while he eats. He has to let the pain of his past loves start to dissipate, even though it seems to be renewed again every time he goes to work and sees Gavin glancing his way.

He wonders what it would be like, if Gavin hadn’t said anything. He wonders if he could still have Simon, if he didn’t ruin everything by kissing him. He wonders if he would have preferred them over Kamski.

He doesn’t think it matters. He tries to shove those thoughts away whenever he can, but he isn’t sure if he’s capable of ever truly falling out of love with someone. He still gets twinges of jealousy when he sees Markus and Simon together in the news, still wants Gavin when he’s looking tired and disheveled at his desk. When he’s alone, when Kamski is gone and there is enough time and space to think about all the things in his past, he feels guilty and cruel for those feelings existing in his chest for people that he can’t have, especially when Connor is with somebody he  _ does  _ want.

But he feels wanted here, finally, for once.

Kamski can’t tell him he loves him, but he feels it. He knows it’s there, in the way the arms wrap around his waist in the morning when Connor is looking out the window. The way he presses kisses to the top of Connor’s head when he’s tired and can’t wake up enough to speak.

He still calls him Kamski, like a nickname, because it feels better than Elijah. But  _ El  _ slips into his vocabulary more and more often.  _ I love you, El,  _ he’ll say late at night, and Kamski will scrunch his nose up at the nickname and the words but he’ll kiss Connor and it’ll be like a promise that someday he might be able to work past his own emotional barriers and say it back.

Connor wants to hear those words—of course he does—but right now he can bathe in the comfort and the luxury of just being wanted and cared for and allow the love that passes between them to be silent but present.


End file.
